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Blog Entry 1 of 19 The Accidental Voice
Observations, ruminations and woolgathering about the world around Castle Rock and the people who live in it.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~theaccidentalvoice

Is the coffee really that good?
Contributed by: Craig Janson   on 8/18/2008

There is a saying in marketing about what it takes to sell a product. Sell the sizzle, not the bacon. That, it seems, is what marketers focus on these days -- the perception, not the actual product, quality of it or how it will actually help the customer.

A few days ago, my wife and son stopped off at Starbucks to get hot chocolate. That seemingly inocuous event became the lead in to the placement of the last piece of straw onto the back of a far too laden pack animal.

Now, I am no real fan of Starbucks - although I used to be. I do happen to believe that way back when they were not a huge, dense corporate monster and Howard Shultz' vision of atmosphere and good coffee was still alive, they were a great company and their shops were great places to go. You could actually walk in and get a decent cup of coffee or some other drink that was both satisfying and worth the money. Not only that, you were already in the perfect place to drink it.

What has happened is they got popular. Popular to the point where the speed at which overwrought and harried customers demanded their beverage takes precedence over taking the time to actually make the coffee right. Popular to the point where the "baristas" have been reduced to nothing more than hourly coffee jerks (not "jerks" in the pejorative sense, but soda jerks who pull coffee). Popular to the point where the natural streamlining that occurs when a task has to be accomplished quickly supercedes the vision of what good coffee is and what it means to provide an inviting place to drink it.

As everyone approaches the speed of light to make more money, acquire more things, be better than the next guy and keep their job, it is now the "barista"'s sole responsibility to execute the transaction alone lest they incurr the wrath of the sales executive late for their first of 20 meetings for the day.

And in that reduction of the process of creating a good product to only the exchange of goods and services for money, the value, caring, pride and commitment has been completely lost. Walk into a Starbucks in Castle Rock now, and you see singular people, heads buried in laptops, a line a few people deep half of which look impatient or put out by actually having to wait and an atmosphere of tension and hurried efficiency.

But the insanity is that those patrons are even there. Because it's not so bad that people want to drink a cup of coffee and check their email, nor is it bad that some are hurried and need to get their coffee and be on their way. No, the crazy thing is that they actually want to pay money for what they get. The coffee sucks! And the service sucks, too.

I now usually avoid Starbucks in favor of Java Guru. Part of it is a principle of eschewing the corporate behemoths for the more friendly and local businesses. But another reason is because over the last 4 or 5 times I have gone to Starbucks in the last 3 or 4 months, each time the experience has been less than satisfying. Either they have discontinued a good product (decaf mocha frappacino), they are out of something (7 layer bars) or they give me the wrong drink (more on that in a bit). If I go to a place that touts themselves as having the best drink and the best atmosphere, that's kind of what I am expecting. With Starbucks, it doesn't seem like you get either any more.

They have tried. They closed the stores for three hours to "teach" the "baristas" how to make a good cup of coffee, they purchased the manufacturer of a new coffee machine called The Clover which if used properly can produce the absolute best cup of coffee from any brand of bean. This is done by using time, temperature and dose (amount of coffee) and fine tuning those elements based on the type and origin of the coffee used. They've even purchased completely new espresso machines at one of the stores here in Castle Rock. They are so proud.

But all that is just trying to bump up the sizzle and not the bacon. You have to have good bacon first to even think about calling attention to the sizzle. And the bacon ain't there. In a recent Wired magazine article, the author went to one fo the stores with the new Clover machine. Having tasted the outstanding coffee it could produce, he wanted to try it "in the field." The result: the coffee from The Clover sucked as bad as that out of the brewpot next to it. Sizzle doesn't bacon make.

I submit the following for your consideration. A few days after my wife and son went to get their hot chocolates, she and I went to get the same. It had been a particularly long and out of the ordinary run of rainy days, it was cool and we had a few hours to ourselves together so decided a hot chocolate would be just a little extra "niceness" added to our time together. We had wanted to go to Java Guru (my suggestion, of course) but they were closed, unfortunately. So it was off to Starbucks (we were north, so driving all the way down toCrowfoot Valley Coffee didn't really appeal to us.)

We ordered "two grande hot chocolates", paid at the drive through and drove off while they cooled. About half way home we give them a taste. Mine tasted like hot chocolate but there was chocolate and whipped cream so I was easily fooled. My wife's on the other hand tasted not at ALL like hot chocolate and more like coffee.

At Starbucks, the order takers write a code on the side of the cups that is part hieroglyphs, part short hand, part smarty pants lingo for the drink you want. Hot chocolate is simply HC. I am not certain nor do I really want to know how a half-caf, skinny, no whip carmel macchiato would be written. But HC seems pretty straight forward.

Upon slipping off the anti scald sleeve and seeing Xo WM on my cup and Xo M on my wife's we realized something was amiss. And in fact after a moments thought, we realized we had been given Mochas instead of just plain hot chocolate. We don't drink caffiene for health reasons so those drinks were wasted. But the bottom line is, we got two completely different drinks than we ordered, there was very little traffic or patronage in the store on a Sunday but still this mix up happened and presumably someone else got our simple hot chocolates.

Now, some would say, "you should have checked to make sure your order was right." And they would have a point. But when the marketing of a company implies that you can trust them to not only serve you the best drink but also provide you with great service and atmosphere to boot, you actually take that as the truth a lot of the time. If you had to double check everyone you ever dealt with, there would be little time in a day to do much else, don't you think? So trust plays a big part in every day living. But trusting Starbucks is apparently something that, well, can't be trusted.

On Starbucks web site, they have a link that says something like "Have an idea? Let us know". Well here's an idea. Make the coffee right. Make it good with homage to the principles you were founded on. If lines get long and customers walk out, well, they didn't want a good cup of coffee, they just wanted a cup of coffee.

But those who stay, those who learn to trust again and those that have the patience to wait for it. They are the ones you want. The people who appreciate a good cup of coffee and appreciate it more when it's delivered. The Clover's not going to do it. Selling jazz CDs isn't either. And neither is closing the stores for just three hours on a single day in a year. What will do it is getting lean again, make it the right way and stop mass producing something that actually should be treated one cup at a time. Hell, McDonalds was voted better coffee...doesn't that tell you something?

Telling people your coffee is great and that the atmosphere of your stores and the CDs played there are what they are looking for really just amounts to one thing. The sizzle. But if it's all sizzle and no bacon, there's not much to sell is there?


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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
Submitted By: Barbara Neff
posted on 10/25/2008 @ 12:36:29 PM
Rated Blog Entry
You make good points, Craig. The addage in business is "grow or die", but sometimes growth is exponential and companies forget to "dance with the one who brung you". I am a Starbucks fan and regular. Our Jazzercise group often meets weekday mornings at the Starbucks inside Safeway in Plum Creek and, mostly, we have a great time there sipping delicious drinks prepared by cheerful staff. Java Guru *is* a wonderful, local, innovative, home town alternative, however. I highly recommend it.
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Submitted By: Casey Morsett
posted on 8/30/2008 @ 7:23:07 PM
Rated Blog Entry
I am actually a barista that works at the Starbucks in the King Soopers parking lot. I'm sorry that you had a bad experience, but people do make mistakes, I'm sure that you have made a few in your life. If the problem would have been communicated to anyone of the staff members we would have been more then happy to replace your drinks to your satisfation and i'm sure you would have recieved coupons for your next hot chocolates to be on the house. I will be the first to admit, going through Starbucks drive-thur's do not provide the same atmosphere as our lobbies do, but to me the drive-thurs are usually used when people are in a hurry and/or for the convience factor. If you ever do come back to a Starbucks I sincerely hope you have a pleasant experience.
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Submitted By: Kristine Kautz
posted on 8/28/2008 @ 8:48:16 PM
Rated Blog Entry
I know this Starbucks has a great group of people working there who try hard to deliver the best possible service. It is unfortunate that your's was not good, but I find it unfortunate that your rant seems to direct your bad feelings for Starbucks onto the people who work there. These baristas are your neighbors, your fellow church parishoners, your teachers, maybe even your friends and/or co-workers. They are real people who live in your community & I think it's sad that they were so publicly flogged. A bad experience should have been brought to the mngmnt's attention so they could have made it right instead of criticizing the people there in the newspaper. I know too from my experience there that the markings on your cup are what they do when you visit their lobby - Xo means extra hot. Perhaps you mistakenly grabbed the wrong drink? I wonder what the people looking for their extra hot Mocha & White Mocha were thinking when they were wondering where their drinks went?
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Submitted By: Lyn Jordan
posted on 8/28/2008 @ 10:58:30 AM
Rated Blog Entry
I so agree with Craig! The last time I was at this very same Starbucks, I ordered a grande latte. It was only half filled, tepid at best, and was thus way too strong. Since I had gone through the drive thru and was needing to get home, it got dumped. The other Starbucks across the way does a better job.
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Submitted By: Lisa Arata
posted on 8/23/2008 @ 12:19:02 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Well stated!
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Submitted By: Michael Rule
posted on 8/23/2008 @ 7:03:49 AM
Rated Blog Entry
A rant, but a good rant :)
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Craig Janson

Castle Rock , CO

Craig Janson has posted 19 blog entries and 18 comments since joining on 11/24/2007. Craig Janson 's average blog rating is 4.75.
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